Edinburgh City Council Suffers Security Breach

A laptop containing several sensitive information on Edinburgh children was recently stolen from the home of a consultant.

"The computer was stolen on August 11 from the house of an independent external consultant who is paid by Edinburgh City Council to go to foster meetings and take notes," Deadline News reports. "It is understood the saved data may contain the behavioural and medical records of kids along with parent reviews that discuss how foster children are settling in with their new families."

"Council officials are particularly concerned because some of the information on the laptop may relate to children who were removed from their parents by social services," SC Magazine reports.

"Files and minutes from dozens of reviews are understood to be among the documents kept on the computer, which detectives have so far been unable to recover," write The Edinburgh Evening News' Rory Reynolds and Ian Swanson. "Edinburgh City Council, which operates the fostering system in the Capital, admitted the laptop data had not been encrypted."

"The council said it had contacted almost all of the families involved," BBC News reports. "An Edinburgh City Council spokeswoman said the police advised the computer had probably been wiped by the thieves. She added: 'However, we won't take any chances even when there is a low risk of individuals being identified. We have contacted the vast majority of those involved and have apologised for any concern this may cause them."

"As recently as June, Glasgow City Council lost a laptop containing the details of 38,000 customers, businesses and citizens, another case of data being stored in an unencrypted state," notes Computerworld UK's John E. Dunn.